Watch CBS News

Apple Visionary Steve Jobs Remembered

BALTIMORE (WJZ)-- The world stops to remember Apple visionary Steve Jobs. News of his death stunned those who use iPods, iPhones and iPads every day.

At Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. and at Apple stores around the world, people are leaving flowers and notes for the man who brought us the iPod.

"He's a person that, had he not been here, I wouldn't be in my business as a computer consultant. So I owe him, pretty much, my career," one admirer said.

Jobs oversaw almost every detail of every product, famously sending back prototypes for flaws no one else could see. Jobs also demanded complete secrecy from everyone at Apple as new devices were developed.

"Great products often come from very different ways of thinking, and if the whole world is around seeing it, you don't have a chance to even test it," explained Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

As he battled pancreatic cancer, Jobs kept pushing himself as hard as he pushed everyone else.

"It was very clear that...He was a man in a hurry to get a bunch of work done while he could," Paul Saffo, a leading technology forecaster, said of Jobs.

He continued as the company's super salesman right up to his final appearance at an Apple event in June.

Steve Jobs shared his views on death with Stanford University graduates in a memorable 2005 commencement speech:

"Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there; and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life."

Since Steve Jobs unveiled the iPod, Apple has sold 300 million of them. That's one for every person in the United States.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.